Rogue Angel - Swordsman's Legacy Part 20

"Perhaps." She'd checked the major treasure hunting sites, such as GeoCache and Treasurenet.com. Nothing on d'Artagnan's sword.

She glided her fingers in admiration over one flat side of the blade. It was much thinner and more flexible than her own sword. Not a weapon designed for battle. This was a gentleman's sword, designed more for show than duel. Though certainly the tip was sharp and would go nicely through a man's torso, if needed.

"Why would the queen give the man a map without a key?" Annja wondered. "It doesn't make sense."

"Unless the key was to hand?"

She met Roux's blue eyes. They glittered with mischief. "Yes, to hand." She tilted the hilt toward him to display the pommel. "Take a look."

Roux tilted the pommel upward with a touch of his finger. "What am I looking at?"

Annja took a look herself and saw the crest was still crusted with dirt. Tracing her fingernail along the raised crest impressed into the pommel, she cleaned out some of the dirt still embedded within the heavy gold disk. What she needed was a small brush archaeologists used to clean away fine particles. But the appearance of a small N N along the outer rim gave her a thrill. along the outer rim gave her a thrill.

"I don't understand why a corporation focused on genetic cloning would have an interest in an ancient sword," Roux commented. "The value is not so great-ah."

"They finance their endeavors with the treasure," Annja finished his thought. "They are pirates, swooping in to steal treasure and literally stealing historical ident.i.ties from the grave. Lambert staffs biopirates as a means to finance his twisted studies."

"Twisted?"

"I uncovered horrible evidence that they are attempting to clone humans."

"Babies in jars?"

She smirked. "Not quite, but close."

Roux appeared appropriately horrified, and swept a palm over his mouth.

"I followed a pregnant woman from the place."

"You were there?" he asked.

"Yes, just now. But I have no tangible evidence. Why else would a pregnant woman be seen by a doctor at such a place? I think she's carrying a clone."

"Human cloning isn't possible," Roux said.

"It's not legitimately legitimately possible. Trust me, I'm a major skeptic, but I have a feeling the attempt to create human clones occurs more frequently than we'd like to believe. Yet who will admit they are involved in such research? That is, until the experiments actually work. In the meantime, humans are suffering for the research." possible. Trust me, I'm a major skeptic, but I have a feeling the attempt to create human clones occurs more frequently than we'd like to believe. Yet who will admit they are involved in such research? That is, until the experiments actually work. In the meantime, humans are suffering for the research."

"But I thought the cloning process merely involved extracting the DNA from embryos. Less than a week old?"

"Two weeks actually. And that is only for therapeutic cloning. The embryo never grows to be born. I found evidence that BHDC has actually been seeing their experiments to the birth stage. They're killing babies, Roux."

"But to kill them makes so little sense. If they are experimenting...?"

"Not killing them purposely, the cloned child is born, then does not survive beyond-well, I saw one file that put the survival to sixty-eight minutes before the infant stopped breathing from complications."

"What sort of complications?" Roux asked.

"I don't know. I didn't have time to read it all. Complications from the cloning process, I a.s.sume. It's not perfected, which is why it's illegal, and beyond the legalities of it, it's morally wrong."

Suddenly overcome by a strange wave of emotion, Annja pressed her palm over the sword hilt and closed her eyes. A thick hollow nagged inside her throat. "It's so wrong. Isn't it?"

"It is," Roux said. He placed a hand on her shoulder, a tender attempt at consoling her. "Why don't you sit down?"

"No time. I'm to meet Ascher in the city. I think I was followed, as it is. See here?"

Roux nodded as she drew her fingertip around the pommel, tracing the worn impression of the directions of the map.

"A compa.s.s. My dear, I think you've found your way to reading the map."

"And all it took was a cup of coffee and an old tourist flyer."

She screwed off the pommel from the hilt and set down the rapier on the desk behind her. "Lock that up. I'm taking this with me."

"Will I require reinforcements to stand in your wake?" he called to Annja's retreating back.

She smiled at his playful, yet knowing, a.s.sessment of the situation. "You may."

Pulling open the front door, she dodged as the whoosh of an arrow skimmed her head.

18.

"Increased security, eh?" Annja said to no one in particular. She kicked the door closed, pressed her shoulders to it-then decided that wasn't a good idea.

As she dodged to the right, the force of an explosion hitting the door sent wood splinters as big as her arm flying in all directions. Flames ignited the remnants of the wood door. Embers sifted into the foyer in a rain of orange bits.

Annja landed on the marble floor in a face-forward sprawl. She heard Roux order Henshaw to go for the automatic weapons.

"Are you all right, Annja?"

"Peachy!"

"What was that? A grenade?"

"Felt like it. Must have been an RPG."

Rolling to her back, she decided whoever had shot the grenade would come next. Springing up, she took a crouching, ready position aside the flaming doorway. Joan's sword arrived from out of the otherwhere, fitting to her grip.

No, my sword, she thought determinedly. It's no longer hers.

Roux moved around the opposite side of the door. He brandished a machine gun, and had found himself a Kevlar flak jacket. The room was still fuzzy with the dust of the shattered door.

"I've got the front," she said. "You go around back and check the perimeter."

"Will do," he said.

The barrel of a sniper rifle appeared in the doorway. Annja held back defense until she saw the elbow of the gun wielder. He turned toward her. Clad in black from head to combat boots, his eyes were revealed in a thin slash across his face mask.

Before he had time to react to Annja's position, she drew the sword in a sweep across his gut. The rifle clattered across the marble floor, skidding over the rubble of charred wood and ash. Blood pooled quickly beneath his clutching fingers. The man dropped to his knees, yelped and sprawled to his side. He wasn't dead, but that wound was going to leave a mark.

"You should really knock before entering," Annja said as she stepped over the body. "It's the polite thing to do."

She slid up against the opposite wall and swung a look outside. All clear. Only her rental parked in the driveway. She returned to position, shoulders and hips against the wall.

Drawing the sword up and pressing the flat of the blade against her forehead, she closed her eyes and exhaled. Never in a million years would she have imagined such a life. Defending herself against men who wanted to kill her? But now that she was living it, she did it with relish.

She'd been gifted a sword that secreted a great treasure. And it wasn't a gift she intended to ever ignore.

Focusing, she concentrated on picking up activity outside. Movement. Footsteps.

With an intensity of calm that bordered on meditation, she connected with sounds outside. Beyond the crackle of flame that quickly reduced to simmering embers in the door, wind brushed through the yew hedges that lined Roux's front yard, listing the stiff branches against the brick exterior of the house. The hazy darkness would not reveal snipers hidden in the shrubs that lined the drive. She wasn't for putting herself out in the open as an easy target.

A glance to the man lying to her right showed he wore a headset. A minuscule red light flashed near his temple. There were others.

The scuff of footsteps moved up the limestone steps that fronted the mansion.

Moving her elbow up to bring the sword horizontal, blade tip tilted down, Annja prepared. Slowly, she exhaled. A deep breath carefully drawn, loosened her muscles to the point of readiness.

The footsteps moved cautiously. And now the rub of clothing focused Annja's hearing. Nylon, windbreaker type of fabric that moved in sharp swishes.

Overhead, the dull patter of automatic rifle fire did not break her concentration. Roux must be up on the roof. The man could take care of himself.

Where was Henshaw? The butler had previously proved he could fend for himself. Annja instantly abandoned worry over him.

The footsteps doubled pace. The toe of a combat boot broached the threshold. Annja swung around. The gunman had but a second to register her position. A red laser beam bobbled across her chest. She spun and drew her sword arm in a wide arc, while twisting her body out of the rifle's line of fire.

She slashed the gunman across the clavicle, avoiding the carotid artery-she didn't want him dead. Warm droplets of blood hailed her hand and wrist.

Gripping the hilt tighter than usual, she fisted the stock of the rifle with the coiled base of her hand, the sword pommel clacking against black steel. The gun fell. Annja kicked the weapon across the floor, away from the fallen shooter.

The gunman lunged for her neck. The sword slice had served little more than to aggravate him.

Thanks to her martial-arts training, close combat didn't give her cause to blink. Releasing the sword from her grip sent it away. Annja brought up a knee and connected with a kidney. The man grunted and doubled over, but the impact couldn't be too deadly for the heavy flak jacket protecting his organs. But his position allowed her to kick up with her other knee, smashing it into his nose. Cartilage crunched. He let out a French oath.

Meanwhile Annja kept a keen eye out the front door. No other gunmen in sight. That didn't mean there weren't snipers in the foliage along the driveway. Had they taken out the guard at the gate? There was no other way in, unless they'd scaled the iron gates.

Swiping a bloodied hand across her cheek cleared the hair from her face.

Swinging around behind her opponent, Annja gripped the back of his nylon jacket. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied a large object drop from above, outside.

A man landed sprawled across the manicured lawn. One point for Roux, or maybe Henshaw.

Swinging her attacker up and using his weight to increase impact, Annja crushed his face into the door frame. He pushed back, forcing her up against the opposite side of the frame. Wood splinters from the shattered door dug into Annja's shoulder. She wore no protective gear, just the T-shirt and khaki shorts.

Groping for his face, Annja dug her fingers into anything soft. She landed both eye sockets. To touch another person's eyeb.a.l.l.s gave her the creeps, but it was either that or lose this fight.

He bent forward, and Annja, now clinging to his body, legs wrapped about his waist, dug in deeper. Her aggressor fell to his knees and collapsed, moaning and grabbing at his face.

Annja stood. Gripping a hank of his hair, she crushed his face into the limestone step, and used her hiking boot crammed against his jaw to keep him down. She demanded, "Who sent you?" she shouted.

He replied in French that she could do something nasty with herself.

So, in French, Annja repeated, "Are you with BHDC? Did Lambert send you?"

Yet more French oaths. This one obviously didn't care that she had a mystery to solve, and usually when one gets his face smashed b.l.o.o.d.y that doesn't mean it's going to go all that well. She didn't even want to see what his eyeb.a.l.l.s were doing. In or out?

"Ms. Creed?" Henshaw appeared in the doorway, wielding a semiautomatic in one hand and what might have been a confiscated crossbow in the other.

"Got things covered, Henshaw." She lifted the sniper's face and gave it one last shove against the step, which succeeded in knocking him out. "Where's Roux?"

"Gathering the intruders."

"There's one on the lawn he missed," she commented as she stepped over the fallen gunman and inspected the crossbow Henshaw handed to her.

"The one on the lawn is mine."

"Nice one, Henshaw. Let's get them tied up and see if Roux can get them to talk."

SHE LEFT ROUX to handle the five thugs who had invaded his home. One was dead. A fall from a four-story rooftop generally did result in death. Three others were injured badly, and Roux intended to deliver them to an undisclosed aqueduct in the center of Paris, in the vicinity of a hospital-should they choose to seek medical attention-but the final man he kept for interrogation.

Annja did not question his neglect to call the authorities. Report a break-in? That would prompt too many questions Roux, and Annja, would rather not consider. Any man who had walked this earth for five hundred years must maintain a certain anonymity with local authorities.

Annja had to explain that she suspected she'd been followed after her kidnapping.

"They held you against your will? Just this afternoon?"

"I'm free. They left me alone and I was able to escape."

"Alone? Hmm, yes, I suppose. Good for you."

Good old Roux, always concerned, but never quite sure how to express that feeling, she thought. He seemed nervous. As if he wanted to say more, but he did not. The last time Annja had seen him so roused by events he had just returned from a forty-eight-hour Texas Hold 'Em tournament.

"I'll see what I can prod out of him," Roux offered with a glint to his eye.

As Annja left, the carpentry crew Henshaw had called to fix the demolished front door pulled up the drive. He'd found a work crew immediately. It was a wonder what money could buy.

She had been careful driving to Roux's estate. She'd kept watch the entire trip. Yet there was no doubt she'd been followed from BHDC by Lambert's thugs. And further, there could be little doubt Lambert felt threatened by her now that she'd infiltrated his files and knew he was involved in human cloning.